Relativity
by Fleetfiend
Summary: Sarah has long since conquered the Labyrinth, and Jareth with it. After watching her die, Jareth spirals into depression. But one day, he discovers Serina, a lonely and lost girl in the Crystal Kingdom. Will he be able to fight for what he loves?


It has been many, many years since Sarah had overcome the trials and tribulations of the Labyrinth. Many, many years since she had denied everything that the generous Goblin King had offered her: dreams, glory, acceptance, and - most importantly - love. And in those many, many years, the Goblin King became what can only be described as a recluse. Staying alone for weeks at a time inside his chambers, he sat in his window facing the vastness of his domain, thinking thoughts of self-pity and viewing the outside world only through his crystals. He continued to watch Sarah, to see her grow and become a woman. He watched in silent hate as she fell in love several times throughout her life, but eventually met what she believed to be her soul mate, got married, and had kids. He smiled as Sarah would read her children her favorite verses from her favorite book. He even watched _them_ as they grew older, to the age that Sarah had been, during those fateful thirteen hours so long ago.

But eventually the day came that Sarah, being mortal, would have to die. In horror, the King looked on as her skin grew wrinkled and her movements grew slow, and her children - along with their children - stood at her bedside, since that was the only place that she could any longer be. She coughed and she trembled, choked and began to speak nonsense as she grew steadily weaker and weaker. It was the most horrifying thing that the King, in all his days, would ever lay eyes upon. And after enduring much suffering - for her and for him - the end inevitably came. Sarah, struggling to breathe, pulled out The Labyrinth for the final time. Holding it tightly, she turned to her children. "I... I have something to..." she tried to say. But she couldn't manage to form the sentence. "...something to tell..." she said. But that was all she could say. They were Sarah Williams's last words.

Though it was only to be expected, the Goblin King was beyond distraut over her death. He burst through his chamber doors, latched tightly onto the nearest goblin's neck, and proceeded to throw it with all his might out of the nearest window. Without a single word, he returned to his chambers, closing them tightly as they had been before.

The King, beyond throwing any more of a fit, simply sat down on his bed. He stared in front of him at the wall, on which a mirror was hung. In it he could see himself very clearly. His anger and sadness was reflected wholly in his eyes. And as he stared at hisself in the mirror, his mismatched irises began to glisten.

He closed his eyes, violently turning away from the mirror and not reacting at all to the sharp _crack_ that followed, nor the chiming of the pieces falling to the floor. Instead he became utterly absorbed in his own sorrow, and, for the first time in a long, long time... Jareth cried.

Nearly a century passed, and the Goblin King stayed in the isolation of his chambers, and the kingdom continued to grow and evolve without him. He didn't leave his room; not once. And due to the lack of much long-term memory in his subjects, he was, for the most part, forgotten. In his absence, the goblins eventually had to learn how to govern themselves. At first there was chaos; goblins - being what they were - first took advantage of the lack of authority to simply create more havoc than had been there before. They broke, plundered, and generally made worse of themselves. But it couldn't last forever. Even some of them soon realized that. So they began to vote to make large decisions, instead of just fighting about them until they were forgotten. And after several more generations of slightly better-reasoned goblin antics, a new breed of goblin emerged. They were smarter and stronger, more handsome and cunning. Though they still considered themselves to be goblins, they were a cut above the rest. They started making all the more important decisions, though they were never considered to be "leaders" by themselves or anyone. After all; they didn't kick anyone around or start singing at random times, how could they be?

And the Goblin King, alone in his chambers, eventually started to crawl out of his despair. As endless as it seemed at first, the tears did stop coming: he couldn't weep forever. But still he never left. To no one else's knowledge, he sat in his window, staring into his crystals, watching random inhabitants of the Underground as closely as he had done to Sarah. He watched goblins, fairies, and other miscellaneous inhabitants of the kingdom that he created. But he also ventured to look upon the lives of people and creatures outside the Labyrinth's many walls. He looked upon the Kingdom of Moraine, the Homunculus Realm, and the Land of Sirens, among others. He even spent some time gazing in between the claimed and colonized lands of the Underground. But it was in the Crystal Kingdom where his eyes continued to turn.

He first became fascinated with the land and the people. Both seemed to be made of the same substance; pure crystal. From a bird's eye view, the whole kingdom seemed to be a single being of some sort, made up of a shimmering and pulsing menagerie of greens, purples, and mostly blues. The Crystal Kingdom was a beautiful and clean place. The homes, the streets, the walls, and even the castle looming behind it all were made entirely from the same crystal from which they emerged. The whole kingdom seemed to flow together like an ocean, and was almost as vast and blue. Every so far there would be a huge spiked spire-like peak jutting from the ground - which, other than for the spires, seemed entirely unbroken. Most of the kingdom seemed to be of a blue hue. However, the people were a different story. It seemed like every inhabitant had their own unique shade of purple, green, or blue.

The crystalins, as the Goblin King found they were called, were an interesting populace. The Crystal Kingdom's inhabitants were made of crystal, and as such, were transparent. However, they managed to move and interact like more familiar, fleshy creatures would. They were also very clean, like the environment in which they lived. Even though they had a mindset not dissimilar to goblins, they managed to seem much more sophisticated. They were of various shapes and sizes, also like goblins. The only real difference between them and his own subjects wasthe fact that the crystalins were more pleasant.

The Goblin King continued to watch over the Crystal Kingdom for many weeks, unknown to its inhabitants. His watchful eyes eventually made their way to the castle, which, much like his own, loomed over the rest of the town. It seemed to have once been one of the crystal spires - only much larger - that had been hallowed out and made into something even more beautiful. It was here that he found the girl that would change the fate of everything.

The princess of the Crystal Kingdom was almost always in her room, near the very top of one of the castle's large battlements. It was late at night when the King first saw her, sitting in her windowsill much like he was himself.

Her name was Serina. Her hair was blond and beautiful, hanging down just past her shoulders. In her hair were streaks of dark blue, but the King later observed that they changed between the colors of the crystal depending on her mood. Her eyes did the same, and they always seemed alight with her emotions. She wore dresses that weren't _quite_ traditional: they were highly form-fitting, and usually only flared out at the very bottom, which was usually at her knees, with the lower part of the dresses flowing down to the floor behind her. She nearly always wore the colors of her kingdom, either because it was tradition, or because of how well they complimented her beauty.

Serina stayed alone in her room whenever she absolutely could, leaving only for the necessary meetings, get-togethers, and formalaties that the Goblin King himself had been totally ignoring for nearly a century. Kato, the Crystal King and Serina's father, was always trying to get her to emerge and socialize, but she continued to refuse. Her father was also bringing in a continuous stream of suitors for her, but she never looked at them twice. Her father would always tell her how disappointing she was, but she never changed. She was adamant. During the day she was more compliant, but the night was her domain. She would sit in her windowsill for hours and stare off at the moon and the stars, her hair and eyes always the same shade of blue, reflecting feelings of sorrow and need.

The more the Goblin King gazed upon the beautiful Serina, the more he felt she needed some sort of respite. And the more he found out about her, the more he realized how much they seemed to have in common, in that sense and others. And, slowly but surely, his memories of Sarah - and the feelings he once held for her - faded away. They pushed out... by his newfound feelings for Serina. She _needed_ him... just as he needed her.

The moment that Jareth realized what he was going to do, he, as simply as is said, left his chambers. He marched out, his high-and-mighty attitude fully intact. Kicking past countless bemused goblins in the halls of his castle, he made his way to the balcony overlooking the Goblin City, where his announcements would have been made, if he ever had made very many. Only a few goblins seemed to notice him. That is, until he spoke.

"Citizens of the Labyrith!" Jareth announced, his voice enhanced by his anxoius magic so that it echoed around and down the streets. Nearly every goblin in the city heard him, and dropped whatever they were doing to look curiously upon this strange man standing in the nearly-abandoned castle. "Tell all your dismal friends! Your King has returned!"

At this, the goblins cheered wildly, even though only a fraction of them had an inkling of what Jareth was talking about. Nevertheless, the King was happy. He turned, now ignoring his peoples' excited murmuring, back into the castle. He quickly made his way to the throne room. It was exactly as he had remembered.

And so, Jareth, the Goblin King, returned to his people. But his newfound motivation had little to do with them. Jareth had found something more to live for. But little to his or anyone else's knowledge, it wouldn't be quite as easy as he thought.


End file.
